Artificial intelligence stands no chance against Natural Stupidity - http://www.defcon1.com/~paolo/
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Facebook stopped from deciding what constitutes crime
SOCIAL NOTWORKING SERVICE Facebook is not allowed to set rules on whether violating a website's terms of service is a crime, which is good news, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
The EFF has reported the outcome of a lawsuit in California that saw Facebook take on a firm called Power Ventures.
Power Ventures, for those who don't know, produces software that lets people aggregate their social notworking accounts and view all of their banality in one easy to ignore place.
Facebook's terms and conditions say that users are not allowed to access their own information through 'automated means', and had complained that Power Ventures enabled this and that its service was therefore accessing Facebook 'without permission'.
Facebook, which as we know jumps through hoops to put users in control of their own information - usually after it has given it away - said that the company had broken criminal law by evading Facebook's attempts to block its access, and Facebook asked a US federal court to agree.
Sadly for Zuckerberg and his lawyers, who are currently trying to ascertain whether he actually owns the controlling share in Facebook or not, the court did not side with Facebook, thanks in part to the intervention of the EFF.
"[The] EFF filed an amicus brief in this case, urging the court to reject Facebook's computer crime claims," explained, Marcia Hofmann, a senior staff attorney at the online rights advocacy group.
"We argued that turning any violation of terms of use into a crime would give websites unfettered power to decide what conduct is criminal, leaving millions of Internet users vulnerable to prosecution for everyday activities. The court agreed with our position, relying heavily on our brief. This part of the ruling is great."
However, we all know that "the law is an ass", and apparently Power Ventures might still be liable if, as Hofmann explains, it was changing its IP address to thwart the Facebook blocks.
"In other words, it may be a crime to circumvent technological barriers imposed by a website, even if those measures are taken only to enforce the terms of service through code," she explained. µ
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Maybe the governments should just pay the big companies half our taxes and in exchange they leave us the hell alone, finalize the protection-racket reality formally.
/cynicism
The long-term solution to this is social networking systems that are decentralized and keep users in control of their own information.
Unfortunately, Facebook is right here. Federal law prohibits evading an access control device, and IP filters are access control devices.
and I thought that -is- a crime, or maybe not?
If I log in at work using my boss's password without permission - or using an exploit tool instead of a normal web browser - at what point am I breaking the law, if at all?
The de facto terms are *solely* that an automated device supplies data in response to a click, and accepts it in response to another click. That's it. There's *no* agreement possible between me and a machine, and if the owner / operator doesn't wish such use, don't connect it to the net.
The only enforceable terms, against making threats, libel, and so on, are those of *society* and applicable everywhere.
Don't accept the fiction that websites can make egregious self-serving terms at their sole discretion. They're *only* websites, though the operators typically run to power-mad proto-dictators.
Also, websites cannot *selectively* enforce terms. They are same as places of public accommodation, and rules applied must be *same* for everyone or are simply not valid.
In any case, requiring websites to *actually* enforce their terms will put an end to these attempts at tyranny.
(For legalistic weenies: YES, operators have the *power* to ban IP addresses and so on. That's *not* an agreement, though, by definition. The de facto terms are exactly as I state above, and regardless of any supposed court decisions.)
Facebook have all got d1ck5 in their 4rs3s!